


Puppies

by dovingbird



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Torchwood
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 22:33:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dovingbird/pseuds/dovingbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack brings home twenty-four children. Panic ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Puppies

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a response to a prompt: Jack and Ianto adopt a bunch of kids.

From a distance. "Iantoooo!"  
  
 _I'm not going to look up._  
  
Silence. "Ianto!"  
  
 _I'm not._  
  
"...Ianto?!" Footsteps.  
  
 _It'll just encourage him and I have to finish these figures..._  
  
And then, the inevitability of the office door swinging wide open. "Ianto Ianto Ianto guess what I got you!"  
  
Ianto tugs off his reading glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose, eyes snapping shut. "Jack, please don't say it's a puppy. We haven't got the space for it."  
  
When he doesn't hear a response Ianto peeks one eye open, studying Jack's exuberant expression: eyes bright, mouth a giant half-moon smile, that enormous cleft in his chin almost disappearing from the span of his mouth alone. Now that's impressive. It takes some level of talent to make that thing vanish. Ianto takes a moment to appreciate it before he realizes Jack isn't responding.  
  
"...Jesus Christ, it's a puppy, isn't it." He glances around the small office, just barely big enough to fit a desk, and he silently considers the other rooms in their flat. "Is it a chihuahua, at least? Something small?" He pauses. "Something yappy enough to cover up the sound of your grating voice?"  
  
Jack gives him The Look, complete with narrowed eyes and quirked mouth that's trying to figure out if he's joking or serious so it can decide if it wants to be a smile or a frown, and then he shrugs. "...close enough!" And then he flings the door open, and Ianto stares down the hallway and into the living room and sees them.  
  
Children.  
  
CHILDREN.  
  
"...bloody hell."  
  
"Ianto!" Jack hisses out a shush, looking outraged as he shuts the door a little more. "There are children out there!"  
  
"Is that so! Is that so!? Because I thought they were bloody _sofa cushions!_ "  
  
"...I thought you thought they were _puppies._ "  
  
"Jack!" He almost squeaks the man's name, he's so angry. "How many children are in our flat right now?" He tries to ignore the sound of something falling over and rampant giggling.  
  
Jack shrugs, ruffling his hair in thought. "Not many. Just, uh...I'unno...about two dozen?"  
  
"There are twenty-four children in our flat right now?!"  
  
"Ianto!" Jack reaches out and presses his index finger against Ianto's lips, and he tries very hard to hold back the desire to bite it off. "I'm gonna have to ask you to keep your voice down. Dominique, Sasha, and Jimmy are in bed napping."  
  
There were three children in their bed. Ianto immediately made a mental note to wash the sheets before the day was out. "Jack, what the hell were you thinking?!" Ianto hisses. "W-we can't have kids here. We can't. You can barely remember to wash your _pants_ much less anyone else's!"  
  
"I had to. I _had_ to." And he has that serious look in those incredible eyes of his, the one that makes Ianto almost swallow his tongue just to get a chance to listen to him. "Ianto, listen to me. They don't have anywhere else to go. Do you understand that?"  
  
"Why? What happened?"  
  
"That's...that's not important right now." And once again Ianto receives a glimpse of a life that Jack Harkness keeps to himself, locked in his head, where no one else is going to find it, not until he's good and ready. He swallows down the disappointment. "All that matters is that until we can find a place for them...they're stuck. And they'll be on the street. And I don't want to think about the kind of things that'll happen to them."  
  
Ianto's seen what roams the streets when no one's out to dissuade them. He doesn't want to think about it either.  
  
"Please. They're awesome. Really cool kids."  
  
"...all right."  
  
A slow grin starts spreading across Jack's face. "Yeah?"  
  
"Yeah, yeah, all right." Ianto leans over Jack to nudge the door open with his knuckle, to stare at the children currently jumping on the sofa and rolling around on the floor. "...you know they can't all stay here, right?"  
  
"Already got that covered! They're gonna stay at _Torchwood_."  
  
Ianto stares at his partner. "...are you mad? With the pterodactyl?"  
  
"It's fine! We'll just make it kid-friendly!"  
  
"Covering up the light sockets with plastic isn't going to stop the bloody pterodactyl!" Ianto bellows.  
  
Living with Jack, loving him, loving every bit of him, it's insane and it's mad and it's bloody hysterical, but he knows in the midst of it all that he wouldn't trade a minute of it.  
  
Not even when he brings home two dozen children without knowing how to change a diaper. Not even then.


End file.
